German-language writer of visionary fiction whose works—especially the novel Der Prozess (1925; The Trial) and the story Die Verwandlung (1915; The Metamorphosis)—express the anxieties and alienation felt by many in 20th-century Europe and North America. Life Franz Kafka, the son of Julie Löwy and Hermann Kafka, a merchant, was born into a prosperous...

German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied medicine (Munich, 1917–21), and served in an army hospital (1918). From this period date...

German novelist and poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. The main theme of his work is the individual’s efforts to break out of the established modes of civilization so as to find an essential spirit and identity. Hesse grew up in Calw and in Basel. He attended school briefly in Göppingen before, at the behest of his father,...

novel by Hermann Hesse based on the early life of Buddha, published in German in 1922. It was inspired by the author’s visit to India before World War I. SUMMARY: The theme of the novel is the search for self-realization by a young Brahman, Siddhartha. Realizing the contradictions between reality and what he has been taught, he abandons his comfortable...

German novelist and essayist whose early novels— Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Early literary endeavours Mann’s father died in 1891, and Mann moved to Munich, a centre of art and literature, where he lived until 1933....

Austro-German poet who became internationally famous with such works as Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. Early life. Rilke was the only son of a not-too-happy marriage. His father, Josef, a civil servant, was a man frustrated in his career; his mother, the daughter of an upper-middle-class merchant and imperial councillor, was a difficult woman,...

two-part dramatic work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Part I was published in 1808 and Part II in 1832, after the author’s death. The supreme work of Goethe’s later years, Faust is sometimes considered Germany’s greatest contribution to world literature. Part I sets out the magician Faust ’s despair, his pact with Mephistopheles, and his love for Gretchen....

novel by Franz Kafka, originally published posthumously in 1925 as Der Prozess. The chapters were organized and the book published by Kafka’s friend and literary executor, Max Brod, despite Kafka’s request that Brod destroy the manuscript. One of Kafka’s major works, and perhaps his most pessimistic, this surreal story of a young man who finds himself...

leading German dramatist, poet, and literary theorist, best remembered for such dramas as Die Räuber (1781; The Robbers), the Wallenstein trilogy (1800–01), Maria Stuart (1801), and Wilhelm Tell (1804). Early years and plays Friedrich Schiller was the second child of Lieut. Johann Kaspar Schiller and his wife, Dorothea. After Johann Kaspar retired...

German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker who, with his extraordinary first novel Die Blechtrommel (1959; The Tin Drum), became the literary spokesman for the German generation that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his native Danzig, Grass passed through the Hitler...

novelist who is chiefly remembered as the author of Im Westen nichts Neues (1929; All Quiet on the Western Front), which became perhaps the best-known and most representative novel dealing with World War I. Remarque was drafted into the German army at the age of 18 and was wounded several times. After the war he worked as a racing-car driver and as...

German poet whose international literary reputation and influence were established by the Buch der Lieder (1827; The Book of Songs), frequently set to music, though the more sombre poems of his last years are also highly regarded. Life Heine was born of Jewish parents. His father was a handsome and kindly but somewhat ineffectual merchant; his mother...

German “Song of the Nibelungs” Middle High German epic poem written about 1200 by an unknown Austrian from the Danube region. It is preserved in three main 13th-century manuscripts, A (now in Munich), B (St. Gall), and C (Donaueschingen); modern scholarship regards B as the most trustworthy. An early Middle High German title of the work is Der Nibelunge...

Hanoverian storyteller, some of whose tales were the basis for the collection The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Münchhausen served with the Russian army against the Turks and retired to his estates as a country gentleman in 1760. He became famous throughout Hanover as a raconteur of extraordinary tales about his life as a soldier, hunter, and sportsman....

German Capital one of the major works of the 19th-century economist and philosopher Karl Marx (1818–83), in which he expounded his theory of the capitalist system, its dynamism, and its tendencies toward self-destruction. He described his purpose as to lay bare “the economic law of motion of modern society.” The first volume was published in Berlin...

German novelist and essayist, an ardent militarist who was one of the most complex and contradictory figures in 20th-century German literature. Jünger joined the French Foreign Legion in 1913, but his father had him brought back to Germany. In 1914 he volunteered for the German Army at the outbreak of World War I and served as an officer on the Western...

German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most-influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through...

German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany’s supreme philosophers (who have often drawn on his works and ideas) and composers...

symbolic story by Austrian writer Franz Kafka, published in German as Die Verwandlung in 1915. The opening sentence of The Metamorphosis has become one of the most famous in Western literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” (Although Samsa has sometimes been described...

treatise by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in four parts and published in German between 1883 and 1885 as Also sprach Zarathustra. The work is incomplete, according to Nietzsche’s original plan, but it is the first thorough statement of Nietzsche’s mature philosophy and the masterpiece of his career. It received little attention during his lifetime,...

classic children’s novel by Swiss writer Johanna Spyri, published in two volumes in 1880–81. An English-language film (1937) starred Shirley Temple. SUMMARY: Orphaned as a baby, Heidi lives with her Aunt Dete, but when the latter gets a new job that means she can no longer keep the little girl, she is only too happy to dump Heidi on her reclusive,...

Austrian writer who achieved distinction in several genres—poetry, essays, short stories, and dramas—most notably in his interpretations of imaginary and historical characters. Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil...

(German: “Storm and Stress”), German literary movement of the late 18th century that exalted nature, feeling, and human individualism and sought to overthrow the Enlightenment cult of Rationalism. Goethe and Schiller began their careers as prominent members of the movement. The exponents of the Sturm und Drang were profoundly influenced by the thought...

13th-century manuscript that contains songs (the Carmina Burana proper) and six religious plays. The contents of the manuscript are attributed to the goliard s, wandering scholars and students in western Europe during the 10th to the 13th century who were known for their songs and poems in praise of revelry. The collection is also called the Benediktbeuern...

drama in three acts by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, performed and published in German in 1956 as Der Besuch der alten Dame. The play’s protagonist Claire, a multimillionaire, visits her hometown after an absence of many years and offers the residents great wealth if they will kill one of their leading citizens, Alfred, who had betrayed Claire...

novel by J.W. von Goethe, published in German as Die Leiden des jungen Werthers in 1774. It was the first novel of the Sturm und Drang movement. The novel is the story of a sensitive, artistic young man who demonstrates the fatal effects of a predilection for absolutes—whether those of love, art, society, or thought. Unable to reconcile his inner,...

German writer, composer, and painter known for his stories in which supernatural and sinister characters move in and out of men’s lives, ironically revealing tragic or grotesque sides of human nature. The product of a broken home, Hoffmann was reared by an uncle. He was educated in law and became a Prussian law officer in the Polish provinces in 1800,...

musical drama in three acts written by Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with composer Kurt Weill, produced in German as Die Dreigroschenoper in 1928 and published the following year. The play was adapted by Elisabeth Hauptmann from John Gay ’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728). Antihero gangster Macheath (“Mackie”) marries Polly Peachum, daughter of a leader...

novel by Hermann Hesse, published as Der Steppenwolf in 1927. The title refers to a style adopted by Harry Haller, Hesse’s protagonist. Haller is a writer, a loner and an outsider who thinks of himself as a wolf of the steppes. Distrusting Western values and despising middle-class society, he despairs of connecting with another human being. Eventually...

novel for children completed and edited by Johann Rudolf Wyss, published in German as Der schweizerische Robinson (1812–27). The original manuscript of the novel had been written by Wyss’s father, Johann David, a clergyman, for and with the aid of his four sons. After the initial publication of an incomplete version, which was translated into French...